Excel 2010 Tips and Tricks

100 Tip 43: Restricting Cursor Movement to Input Cells
Restricting Cursor Movement to Input Cells
A common type of worksheet uses two types of cells: input cells and formula cells. The user
enters data into the input cells, and the formulas calculate and display the results.
Figure 43-1 shows a simple example. The input cells are in the range C4:C7. These cells are used
by the formulas in C10:C13. To prevent the user from accidentally typing over formula cells, it’s
useful to limit the cursor movement so that the formula cells can’t even be selected.
Figure 43-1: This worksheet has input cells at the top and formula cells below.
Setting up this sort of arrangement is a two-step process: Unlock the input cells and then protect
the sheet. The following specific instructions are for the example shown in Figure 43-1:
1. Select C4:C7.
2. Press Ctrl+1 to display the Format Cells dialog box.
3. In the Format Cells dialog box, click the Protection tab, deselect the Locked check box,
and click OK.
By default, all cells are locked.
4. Choose Review➜Changes➜Protect Sheet.
5. In the Protect Sheet dialog box, deselect the Select Locked Cells check box and make
sure that the Select Unlocked Cells check box is selected.
6. (Optional) Specify a password that will be required to unprotect the sheet.
7. Click OK.
After you perform these steps, only the unlocked cells can be selected. If you need to make
any changes to your worksheet, you need to unprotect the sheet first, by choosing Review➜
Changes➜Unprotect Sheet.